The “AIMS for Health Innovation – All-Island MedTech SMEs for Health Innovation”, funded by InterTradeIreland’s SYNERGY programme, is a joint initiative between Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland (HIRANI) and Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI).
HIRANI was established to strengthen the life and health sciences ecosystem by driving collaboration across business, academia, health, and government to support growth and act as a single voice for the sector with a focus on promoting life and health sciences capabilities in Northern Ireland (NI).
HIHI is a joint government initiative of the Department of Health and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment (DETE). It is delivered through a Health Service Executive (HSE) and Enterprise Ireland partnership. HIHI is funded to develop, scale, and grow Irish health tech companies to answering the needs of the Irish healthcare system.
The project aims to identify an improved MedTech adoption process within Health and Social Care (HSC) in NI and the HSE in Republic of Ireland (ROI), support smaller SMEs and start-ups to compete and encourage collaboration between industry and healthcare stakeholders. As a project outcome, HIRANI and HIHI will develop a framework of recommendations to support SME innovation procurement in secondary care across the island of Ireland.
The project consisted of two in-person workshops with SMEs from NI and ROI held in March 2023 in Belfast, and May in Dublin. These included discussion around challenges for SMEs in health procurement. Following workshop one, a working group was established to seek input from healthcare and procurement representatives. The challenges identified were explored further via breakout groups at workshop two, held in May 2023 in Dublin. In addition to SME representatives, HSC, HSE procurement, policy and state agency representatives were in attendance for workshop two to make recommendations that aligned with health procurement needs.
The framework of recommendations is currently being compiled and a full report will be published September 2023.
The “AIMS for Health Innovation” project is funded by InterTradeIreland’s SYNERGY initiative, a cross-border cluster initiative set up by InterTradeIreland, the cross-border trade and business development body. It aims to scale cross border collaboration among SMEs and other players such as universities, third sector organisations and government agencies using cluster and networking supports.
For more information, please contact:
Eimear Galvin, MA, BA, PGDip Technology Commercialisaton, PGDip Design Thinking
Manager, Health Innovation Hub Ireland (Trinity College Dublin)
St James’s Hospital
Direct line: +353 (1) 896 25 29
Mob: +353 (83)8520016
E-mail: galvinei@tcd.ie
For more information:
HIRANI Programme Manager Dr Siobhan McGrath at Siobhan.mcgrath@hira-ni.com